Before he could react, before he could offer an explanation or even introduce her to Chelsea, she whirled and ran into the kitchen.
“Who was that lady?” Chelsea demanded.
“That was Beth Callahan. She’s the lady who helped me find the house,” he said just as Delores came in from the living room, her eyes twinkling, apparently at the mention of Beth.
“So where is she? I’m dying to get a look at her,” she teased. “Of course, judging from that color in your cheeks, maybe I should be asking what the two of you were doing upstairs when we arrived and why you didn’t have sense enough to lock the front door.”
He scowled at his ex-mother-in-law, hoping the look was fierce enough to put an end to that bit of speculation, particularly with his precocious daughter listening in. Unfortunately, there wasn’t the slightest sign of repentance in her expression. If anything, she looked even more fascinated by his reaction to the question.
“She went into the kitchen for something,” Ken said, glancing worriedly in that direction. He wondered if she would scoot straight out the back door or come back so that she could meet his family.
“I hope you don’t mind that we came a day early,” Delores said, finally dropping her teasing. “Chelsea was getting anxious. Her teacher told me she wasn’t paying a bit of attention in school, anyway.”
“We wanted to surprise you, Daddy.”
He hugged her. “I’m glad you did, Shortstuff.” He just wished they had turned up an hour or two from now. More, he wished that Beth had been more prepared for the arrival.
It was his own damn fault. He should have discussed his situation with her, even if she’d never asked about it. Probably no woman, however much she might like kids, wanted to have one sprung on her the way Chelsea had turned up here today.
It was also entirely possible that Beth was simply embarrassed that his daughter had very nearly caught them in bed together. For that matter, knowing the way she felt about this house, maybe she’d just been incensed by Chelsea’s outspoken, negative first impression. He could have reassured her that in Chelsea’s present frame of mind, his daughter wouldn’t have been impressed if she had walked into an exquisitely furnished palace.
After giving it some thought, Ken decided he liked any of those explanations for Beth’s reaction far better than the worrisome possibility that she disliked children. If that was the case, they had a real problem because Chelsea came first with him. He planned to make it up to her for all the turmoil he and her mother had put her through.
He noticed Delores watching him speculatively.
“She didn’t expect us, did she?” she guessed. “I don’t just mean today. She didn’t know about us at all, did she?”
He shook his head.
“Maybe you should go talk to her. Chelsea and I can look around on our own.”
“I want Daddy to come with us,” his daughter interrupted, her chin set mutinously.
Delores’s mouth formed a grim line. “Chelsea Anne Hutchinson, one of these days you are going to have to learn that you can’t have everything you want the minute you want it.” She plucked the squirming Chelsea from Ken’s arms. “Go on. We’ll be fine.”
He debated doing just that, if only to back up Delores’s firm stance with Chelsea, but he figured he owed Beth time to gather her composure. Even knowing his decision was probably based as much on cowardice as consideration, he still shook his head.
“Let’s do the tour. I’m sure Beth will join us in a minute.”
Delores looked as if she might argue. Finally, she shrugged. “I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she said, though her tone suggested exactly the opposite.
Ken figured she was probably right to doubt him. He was operating on gut instinct here and something told him there was more behind Beth’s unceremonious departure than met the eye, something that would have to be dealt with sooner or later. Not now, though. He wasn’t going to do anything to spoil Chelsea’s first look at her new home. It was too critical. Beth’s questions would have to wait.
Even though he’d set his priorities and was prepared to stand behind them, he felt this terrible weight descending on him. He finally admitted to himself that he had wanted desperately for his daughter and the woman with whom he was becoming involved to like each other. The possibility that Beth might take an instinctive dislike to his child had never occurred to him. And if that’s what had happened, he wasn’t ready to deal with it just yet.
Chelsea had scrambled out of Delores’s arms and stood glaring up at him. “I hate this place,” she announced in a petulant tone. “Why do we have to live here?”
Ken barely held on to his already ragged temper. “How can you possibly hate it?” he asked, his tone amazingly even. “You haven’t even seen it yet. Let’s go up and take a look at your room. It’s practically twice the size of the one you’ve had up till now. You can tell me exactly where you want your bed. The wallpaper we’ve picked out is supposed to be here on Monday and we can go look for the perfect furniture once you’ve seen it. This time next week you’ll have your room fixed up exactly the way you want it.”
He started up the stairs, Delores right behind him. Chelsea lagged behind, but she did follow. Instead of the excited, scampering footsteps he’d envisioned, though, hers were slow and plodding. She refused to come into the room she’d finally chosen from the snapshots he’d taken home. He owed Delores for getting her to do that much. Now, her expression sullen, her lower lip stuck out, she remained in the doorway.
Ken kept his tone deliberately cheerful as he pointed out the already-painted, built-in shelves for her books and dolls, the window seat with its comfortable, brightly covered cushion overlooking the front yard.
“It’s ugly,” she announced. “And I hate it.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked up at him pleadingly. “I hate it, Daddy. I hate it. I want to go home.”
The tears stripped away his anger and left his emotions raw. He’d never felt more helpless. He gathered her up in his arms.
“Shh, baby. It’s going to be okay. You’ll see. You just have to give it a chance.”
He carried her over to the window seat and sat down. “See, just look outside at all the snow. You’ll be able to build a snowman tomorrow. And there’s a hill in back. You can go sledding. And you know what I bought the other day? An old-fashioned sleigh, the kind that has to be drawn by horses.”
He noticed the first faint stirring of interest in her still-damp eyes.
“Horses?”
“Right. As soon as the sleigh is all fixed up, I’m going to hire two horses and we’ll ride all over the countryside in that sleigh. We’ll put jingle bells on the reins. And we’ll take along hot chocolate to keep us warm. How does that sound?”
She sniffed, her disdain for everything about this new situation beginning to waver. “Okay, I guess.”
“And Thanksgiving is only a week away. We’ll have a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Maybe your grandmother can stay until then,” he suggested with a glance at Delores, who nodded. “And we’ll see if Uncle Claude and Aunt Harriet can come up. It’ll be just like an old-fashioned Thanksgiving.”
“What about Mommy? She’ll be all alone in California.”
“I’m sure Mommy will have friends to be with on Thanksgiving.”
“Why can’t she be here with us?”
Ken sighed. “We’ve been all through that. Remember when we talked about people having dreams about what they want their lives to be like? Being in California is something that Mommy always wanted. She wanted very badly to be an actress. For a very long time she gave up that dream to be with us, but now she really has to try to make it come true. It’s not fair for us to ask her to stay here, if she’s unhappy.”
Chelsea’s shattered expression told him she didn’t understand her mother�
��s abandonment and that nothing he’d said or could ever say would make her pain go away.
“It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you with all her heart,” he explained, trying futilely to reassure her. “She just needs to do this for herself right now. One day soon you’ll be able to go and visit her. And we’ll see Grandma and Grandpa in California, too. It’ll be fun, kiddo. You love going to see them, remember?”
He glanced up to see tears in Delores’s eyes, tears that she hurriedly brushed away. He pressed a kiss against his daughter’s forehead. “In the meantime, can’t you try to give this place a chance? I really think you’ll like it, if you do.”
Her little chest heaved with a sigh of resignation. “Can I have a dog?” she asked with a manipulative air that was all too reminiscent of Pam.
They had never discussed pets before. He hadn’t even known Chelsea wanted one. He refused to be rushed into such a decision out of guilt. “We’ll talk about it.”
“But, Daddy...”
“No argument, Chelsea,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. Deliberately injecting a calmer note into his voice, he added, “I said we will talk about it and we will.”
“When?” she persisted.
“When the house is completely finished.”
Her face fell. “But, Daddy, that will be forever.”
He shook his head. “No, it won’t, pumpkin. We have a miracle worker on our side.” At least he hoped they still did. “Let’s go downstairs and you can meet her.”
“I can hardly wait,” Delores murmured just loud enough for him to hear it.
“Watch it or I’ll banish you,” he taunted her lightly.
“You wouldn’t dare, Ken Hutchinson. I know all your deepest, darkest secrets.”
“You only think you do.”
They were still bantering affectionately when they reached the bottom of the steps just in time to catch Beth trying to slip out the front door.
Pretending he hadn’t noticed that anything was amiss, Ken called out too cheerfully, “There you are. We were just talking about you.”
She stopped and turned back with painfully obvious reluctance. Her mouth formed a polite smile, but her eyes were desolate. In fact, it looked as if she might have been crying. Guilt sliced through him. The explanations would have to come later, though. There was no time for them now, not with two fascinated onlookers.
“Beth, I’d like you to meet Delores Jensen, the absolute best mother-in-law any man could ever have.”
He hadn’t thought it possible but even more color seemed to drain out of Beth’s complexion. Still, she held out her hand to Delores. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“You’ve done a wonderful job with the house already,” Delores told her warmly. “I can see why Ken bought it. Not everyone would see its potential, but I can already imagine how lovely and gracious it will be when it’s finished.”
Beth’s expression softened ever so slightly. “It is an incredible house, isn’t it? From the very first time I saw it, I wanted to see a family settled here. Jefferson Grady, the last man who owned it, was eighty-three when he died. He’d lived in it his whole life. I’m afraid, though, that he ran into hard times later in life and he wasn’t able to keep it up. His children and grandchildren had all moved away and seldom visited, from what I understand. Every time I drove past, it saddened me to see the house looking so forlorn after years of echoing with children’s laughter.”
“Well, we’re about to change all that, aren’t we, Shortstuff?” Ken said, drawing Chelsea over to stand in front of him. “Beth, this is my daughter, Chelsea.”
Even though she had to have guessed the relationship, Beth visibly winced at the introduction. “Chelsea, I hope you’ll be very happy here,” she said, the words mechanical and lacking her usual enthusiasm. She didn’t even look at the child as she spoke. As if she’d sensed Beth’s displeasure, Chelsea stiffened against the unspoken rejection.
Ken watched the two of them with a sense of despair. How could this warm, gentle woman he’d come to know so intimately suddenly be so cold and distant? And how could she take whatever justifiable anger she might be feeling toward him out on an innocent child? He began to wonder if he knew Beth Callahan nearly as well as he thought he had.
“I really have to go,” she said abruptly, still not meeting his gaze.
Even though he could tell it was useless, he tried to argue with her. “Are you sure you can’t stay? I’m sure Delores and Chelsea would love to hear about all the plans for the house. Then we could all go to the inn for dinner.”
“I have dinner plans,” she lied brazenly, obviously fully aware that he knew better. “The samples are all on the desk in your den, if you’d like to show them what we’ve planned.”
“You know I don’t know the first thing about all this stuff.”
“A couple of weeks ago you might not have, but you’re a quick study. Besides, I’m sure you’d like to be alone with your family on their first night in the new house.”
The hurt in her voice cut right through him. But before he could argue, she turned and fled, leaving him staring after her openmouthed.
“Seems to me like you’ve got some fences to mend,” Delores said.
“I didn’t see any fences,” Chelsea chimed in, her expression puzzled.
“Not those kinds of fences,” Ken murmured as he listened to Beth’s car door slam and the whir of her tires on ice as she sped too quickly away from the house.
* * *
Beth cursed a blue streak as she drove away from the Grady place—correction, the blasted Hutchinson place. Not once in the handful of meetings they’d had to discuss the house, and certainly not once in all the times they’d lain side by side in her bed, had Ken mentioned a single word about a daughter. Or about the wife that generally came with a child and a mother-in-law.
Not that she’d asked, idiot that she was, not even after he’d openly admitted he wouldn’t be moving in alone. She hadn’t wanted to know the details. She had wanted a few days with him, not an entire future. But somehow, discovering that was all that she would have, changed everything.
She rubbed her hand angrily over her mouth, as if that could take away the lingering sensation of the kisses they’d shared right before her world fell apart. But, she thought hopelessly, if the gesture was a futile attempt to rub out the memory of the kiss, she might as well accept there was nothing on the planet that could strip away all the other sensations they’d shared.
She drew in a deep, determined breath. She just wouldn’t accept that. With enough willpower, she could force herself to forget about every single minute they had spent together. Surely there were ways to bury less than two weeks’ worth of memories. How indelible could they be?
Perhaps if she thought hard enough about the way Ken had used her, she would want to rip his heart out. At the moment, though, she seemed to be filled with as much self-loathing as fury. How could she ever have fallen for a man who would so blatantly cheat on his wife, a man who had the audacity to introduce his mistress to his mother-in-law and child, for Heaven’s sake? Had it been so long since she’d been interested in any man that she’d allowed her judgment to be clouded by physical attraction?
Even if she couldn’t wipe out the memories, putting the entire mess behind her would be relatively simple if she never had to see the man again. Unfortunately, she had more rooms to finish in the house. Most of them bedrooms, dammit. And one of them was obviously going to be a little girl’s room, which he hadn’t mentioned.
To be fair, which she wasn’t much inclined to be, they had discussed just one room at a time, starting with the master suite. The subject of what was to be done with those extra bedrooms had never come up. She’d been so caught up in the decor of the master bedroom and her own scandalous imaginings about that king-size bed he’d
insisted on that she hadn’t given a thought to the possibility that someone else might share it with him.
She lifted her foot off the accelerator and forced herself to slow down and try to treat what had happened this afternoon rationally. First of all, this was a job. She should never once have allowed herself to forget that. Second, he had never mentioned a wife, so maybe she wasn’t in the picture. Maybe she was jumping to all the wrong conclusions.
Yeah, right! she thought, chiding herself for the self-delusion. He hadn’t mentioned a child, either, and that little girl had definitely called him daddy.
An image of Chelsea came to mind. Beth felt her heart constrict. She was such a beautiful child, her delicate features a softened, more feminine version of her father’s. And it had been obvious how much Ken adored her. One tiny part of Beth yearned to be part of such a family, to claim the two of them as her own.
Then she recalled the little girl’s derisive remarks about the house, her generally sullen air. Warning bells went off in Beth’s head. She knew all about impossible children. It didn’t matter that Chelsea had looked like a child right out of the pages of a storybook in her Sunday-best clothes. It only mattered that she was so obviously spoiled by her indulgent family. Her behavior brought too many bitter memories to mind.
Even if the situation weren’t impossible, even if there weren’t the child’s real mother to consider, Beth knew she would never dare to risk involvement in another potentially disastrous relationship. She simply wasn’t cut out to be a stepmother, maybe not even a mother. Hadn’t she learned that the hard way?
But how had it even gotten this far? Ken might have committed a sin of omission. Her judgment might have failed her. But what about Gillie, her very best friend? Why hadn’t Gillie warned her, rather than encouraged her to get involved with Ken? Surely Gillie’s fascination with her favorite sports celebrity must have included details on his personal life. She’d known about his charity work, hadn’t she? How could she have missed the fact that the man was married and the father of a daughter?
One Step Away: Once Upon a Proposal Page 10